Night of the Banshees

Night of the Banshees

         The festival was such a luscious time. The air was always right and the waters at the beach washed up with a pale red glow and brought treasures from the Island. Everyone went to the beach, to find the wonders that the Island sent them. Each knew what treasure was theirs.
         I had gone only to find the cool warmth of that special dusk, to be embraced by the epiphanies that only come as the sun is setting and moon rising. I looked out at the waters, up to the sky, and around me at all the people dancing, singing, searching for truth; it was all so wonderful. I felt as though I was spinning in a rush of colors and sounds that would take me to somewhere distant and amazing. Perhaps the joy around me would take me to the Island. Yes that would be nice, to see the shores of gold there, or to look up at the regal sky. I’d go down to the Island’s beach and send a hundred things to the world around. Just like they had sent me—well, only nineteen now. I remember the seventh thing the Island sent me, the best of them all.
         It was my seventh festival; everyone says that’s the best one no matter who you are. I went down to the beach in a daze, wandering the shore looking at all the things that had come to us. And amongst all those gems shining deeply in their shallow graves amongst infinite grains of sand one thing shone true to me, one little thing. It was a ring, a gold ring. It was tarnished and dull, and many sizes larger than my finger was or is today. I found it next to a book about a man in a far away land that Jerome was sent and a picture of a lost soul roaming a forest that was sent to Derek. It spoke to me; it spoke of a journey across endless waves and countless winds. It told me of the path I would take. My soul was in that ring and it was telling me everything I could imagine.
         This year I took in the sights of the people perusing the shores, looking about for the precious thing the Island had sent them this time. I looked at the fires that burned the gold up from the shore and shot it into the fuchsia sky above to illuminate the quest we each took that night. I walked down the path I always took. It was well worn, many people took it. It lied along the north shore and came straight off the East block. I carefully made my way onto the shore; I didn’t want to disturb any of the things the people were looking for.
         I made my way along the edge of the waters. The ring I was sent thirteen years ago bounced against my chest hanging from a shiny gold chain. The ring still remained dull and tarnished, and still did not fit my finger. It never would fit, and that’s what made it so precious to me. It wasn’t my ring, which I had bought to fit me. It was a gift someone on the Island sent me. And now I walked the line of pale red and gold with a golden, purple glow above me, guiding me. I walked the line between worlds with a common sky above.
         I looked all around me, not leaving a single grave unseen. I wouldn’t pass once the thing I had been sent. Not that I would, no one missed their thing, not even once. It was part of the joy of the festival, to find your place at first sight. I was looking for mine with a sense of wonder in my heart. It was the time to be happy now, the time to feel like nothing was wrong with anything. Not that anything could be wrong. Each festival brought us all an endless joy, one that could last us a lifetime. Tonight I’d find my twentieth joy; my score of wonders would come to a head. Somewhere amongst these shining specs was a fantasy dreamed hundreds of nights into a physical form I could hold and touch, see, smell, taste, hear—experience.
         I kept walking, stepping upon tiny grains that held the things the Island sent. The tiny grains that fed the screaming fires and the pale red waters that carried the things from the Island and the sky that saw it all unfold. A giant sky that was home to everything, and whose winds howled the horrors and the joys of the world. I kept walking, looking, breathing in the aroma of the burning sand floating through the crushing sky. Everything was here now.
         “It doesn’t fit you?” I looked up to see life, wonder, amazement. I saw the Island standing before me with golden skin, saintly eyes, and hair that displayed a palette of colors only the Island could send. The voice, it was deep and piercing. So rough, yet so soothing. Lips that spoke on a sweet breath that could intoxicate the very night itself. I was spinning again with the colors and sounds, all the things the festival had. But now it was so much more. The world hovered around me and I was destined to revolve around the very sun itself. The midnight sky would come crashing into my soul and fill me with the nineteen things before now and I would open my eyes to see the last standing as though the sand held him there for me to never forget.
         Eventually I came to a stop, the world spinning round me still. All things passing by me in one wonderful blur of light, sound, smells swirling up into my nose. The infection of the night had dug into my very soul itself and I was here, before the Island itself. The ring was on his finger, his hand on my face. The eyes of the Island looked into me and I felt trapped in a world beyond me, free of my land. He spoke to me in a shrill, booming song. I absorbed every last note of his melody and fell back on to the sand like an angel in the clouds. I put my body to rest and found myself beside him. I closed my eyes and saw all the dreams I’d ever had, saw all the things the Island had sent me. And everything rushed through my very being. The colors and sounds became one, and all the things came together into one white energy. A beam of pure essence that drove all my consciousness to the Island’s shores.
         Today is the festival; I’m going down to the shore to send the world a gift. One that will find a glowing beach under a vivid sky. I’ll send the shiny, gold ring he gave me. It’s precious to me, and someone will see that in themselves. I’ll go back and in many years and I’ll know what they found in my gift. I’ll see them rush up into the very sky, and then they can come see me anytime…